Oaks Properties has applied for a permit for a 70-unit apartment building across the street from Union Depot, in the parking lots behind Kelly's Depot Bar at 244 4th Street East. If approved, Frana Cos. would be the builder and Kaas Wilson the architects. A variance is needed for the floor area ratio (not clear from this article whether it's too high or too low).

I still think residential apartments are in a bubble down here, but time will tell. Custom House is filling up with hundreds of new apartments that just went online. The former commercial building on Sibley between 4th and 5th is currently being renovated to apartments, which will be hundreds more. The Jax building is set to be renovated. This building in the lot above Kelly's Depot. Apparently developers are eyeballing the parking lots next to the building that houses Black Dog.

The problem is there is a finite market for $1500-2500 luxury apartments. If the economic and real estate bubble pops anytime soon the developers are in trouble. And this is just Lowertown I'm referring to. Think of all the new residential construction over on W 7th near Xcel. I think St Paul got a little too hyped on downtown residential and it may end up being just a short term phase propagated by bored millenials who will be moving out soon due to $2000 rents.

I digress though. This development specifically seems OK and fitting of the the surrounding buildings. It appears garage access is through the Kelly's lot which I imagine Kelly's will benefit from financially. Which is good because that bar is an institution in the neighborhood and I hope it remains for a long long time. Tearing it down and building a ten story residential building there would be a damn shame. I would rather have 1 Kelly's in the neighborhood than 3 new generic craft beer bars or brewpubs.

As a fairly new resident of Lowertown, I feel the same way: how much higher end housing and restaurants can this neighborhood absorb without more jobs. I love my neighborhood, I don't want to see it overshoot the market.

The site continues to be cleared and it looks like they started to drive piles this week. The parking lot that was there was falling down the hill so I think in this case, apartments are an improvement.

Downtown St. Paul still has a surprising number of lots available for contextual, 7-13 story apartment or condo buildings. Hoping this development really succeeds and sparks similar projects, because there's no place in the Twin Cities with more potential to be a truly great urban neighborhood.

Finance and Commerce has a small profile about this project (which, judging by this thread, I am the only person interested in). It just opened and is about 45% leased. Most apartments are 1br, "ranging in size from 540 to 619 square feet." Prices are quoted at $1,330 to $1,490/mo, so about $2.40-$2.46 per square foot. Some interesting amenities in the building, including "smart home technology."

I'm not sure that lease-up and those numbers are going to spark a building frenzy in downtown St. Paul, which is a bummer, Lowertown alone needs about ten more projects like this. But those numbers don't strike me as particularly awful either. I hope developers will be willing to take occasion risks in this area.

I really like this project. It's nicely scaled and placed in a part of town that could use more people out and about. It blends in really nicely, which I think it one reason why it hasn't gotten more fanfare.

I really like this building a lot. I wish there was ground level retail, but the footprint is understandably a bit small for that. I hope we see many more similar new construction projects in the Lowertown district going forward.

This appears to be a full 7 stories. Are the upper two stories just 2-story loft units? We've seen projects with a 2-story concrete base, so 5 stories of wood over 1+mezzanine of concrete (Walkway Uptown, etc). We've also seen 5+1 projects where the top floor is extra tall and appears to be a partial 7th but is just lofted 6th floor units. This is the first I've seen where it truly looks like 7 full stories from the outside. So what's going on up there? Is 6 stick over 1 concrete now allowed by building code, as long as floors 6&7 are built as 2-story units rather than separate floors?

My understanding is that the code allows a mezzanine level to be added to the 6th floor. In order for it to be considered a mezzanine, though, it must be directly connected to the 6th floor (so no stand-alone 7th floor unites) and the floor area of the mezzanine must be less than X% of the main floor (where X is some number I can't remember but is maybe 50?).